Mariam’s Magic

That was a telegram from my village.

“Ramanna is sick. Start immediately – Ammi”

The message would not be really an emergency call, I thought. I received couple of them earlier and I always tried to ignore them. But within two hours, I received a phone call from my younger brother Jitin, saying he would be leaving to my home to visit my father.

There it goes. If he goes and I don’t go, what do people think? So, I decided to start for my home. Only in the anticipation of meeting my healthy father, who is playing pranks on us.

Our father Ramaiah is living alone in our old village home. Ammi is our distant relative who takes care of him. My mother died three years back and that was the last time we two brothers visited our village. I am living in Lucknow and my brother settled in Jaipur. We really do not have any interest to go to our little village, which is very much far down south of India. On our last visit, we fought with each other over looking after him.

“You take him with you” I urged Jitin to take him.

“No. Why don’t you take him with you?”

It was not that we can not afford to look after him. We felt our busy lives would not welcome this old man into our lives.

When I arrived at our village, my brother Jitin did not turn up yet. That was a slight relief to me. Had he reached earlier to me, he would have scored more marks than me in the eyes of my father. For a son of not that much bright brain, I struggled to live up to my brother before my parents, especially in studies and in settling down in life.

Ammi was helping my father to get up from bed. “He is really sick” I felt the very moment I saw him. I cursed myself for taking it jovial. I jumped ahead and took the other shoulder and helped my father to sit on the chair.

“What happened? What did the doctor say?” I enquired Ammi.

“For the last one week, he is unable to get up on his own. He feels very cold and full of body pains” Ammi stopped to wipe her forehead. “The doctor said he needs lot of rest and good food.”

“I don’t need any rest”, my father tried to retort.

“Allow her to finish, father” I looked towards Ammi.

“He is not listening to me at all. Despite the doctor’s advice, he went into the fields yesterday also” she quipped.

“I wrote to you many times not to work anymore. Why can’t you simply take rest?” I grunted.

“What to do then?” my father shouted at me. He is still the same. He would not accede to anything so easily.

Later that day, my brother arrived. He also came alone.

After that night’s rest, we decided to take our father to the big hospital in the town. But Ammi came and told us that he wanted to go and visit Mariam, the witch-doctor in the far-neighborhood village.

I protested. ‘Who will be still going to that kind of witch-doctors now-a-days?’

But the father would not accede so easily. We had to listen. We took him to Mariam.

Mariam is an old witch-doctor, who is little famous among our neighborhood. She treats all the diseases starting from measles to cancer and from new-born to oldest. She does this job mainly for social service, rather than earning a livelihood. People attribute her power to Kali, the Goddess and treat her with respect.

“I can not go in” Jitin protested, after seeing the environment Mariam lives in.

“OK. We came so far. Let him feel happy.” I pulled his hand and took him.

Mariam is quite an aged lady, must be around sixty years old. She left her hair to air, I believe, her hair was full of knots like unkempt for ages. She wore a dark-patched saffron sari and a garland of rudrakshas around her neck. The main thing that attracted us was the biggest bindi on her forehead.

The moment Mariam came out, we all stood up. My father who was weak till then, gathered full strength from nowhere and stood up. That was a miracle.

She asked my father to go with her inside. Ammi went along with him.

“Do you think she can cure father?” Jitin asked.

“What do you think?” I laughed. “Let the old man be happy.”

“How old is our father now?”

I tried to count. “Must be close to seventy”

After half an hour Mariam came out. There was kind of tension in her face.

“Are you the sons of Ramanna?” she queried in the native slang. We nodded our heads.

“He needs to be treated for couple of days here. He will be staying in my house. You have to make arrangements for yourselves.” She quickly turned back and went inside, before we understood her words.

‘What is his problem? How many days it may take? How she is going to cure him?’ lots of questions in our mind. But she has vanished. After some time, Ammi came out and told us she can find some place for us to stay over.

With little difficulty, Ammi arranged an accommodation at the local village headman’s house. The headman got an outhouse, which he rarely uses for guests. It was located at the other corner of the village.

That night, we sat silently outside watching the half moon. The village slept long before. The cool wind and chilling silence disturbed my thoughts. I remembered our childhood days and how Jitin and I played in the fields. We had always quarreled for almost everything. My mother had struggled to make truce between us all the time.

Jitin, being bright in studies went for higher studies in Delhi. I settled to study in the town’s college. “The second one is very intelligent” my father would boast in the public. I always had the complex that Jitin scored better marks than me.

When I ran home after passing the Railway Board Test, instead of congratulating me, my father said, “Jitin would get a better job than this.” That hurt me a lot and even today I had slight feeling of it inside my heart. Jitin, as expected got a job in Air Force and settled well.

“So, how is babhi and kids?” Jitin asked.

That was an unexpected question from him. Jitin hated my wife for some reason and that is one of the reason he never visited me at Lucknow.

“Aarti is fine. Both the children are going to school – Ninth class and Seventh”

“Suchi is now pregnant. I forgot to tell you that.” Jitin mentioned.

“What is Ajit doing?” I asked. Ajit is the first son of Jitin.

We talked for more than four hours about our families, careers and other miscellaneous things.

The next day, we went to see our father in the early morning.

Upon seeing us, Ammi’s face blossomed very much.

“Babaji has improved a lot. Come and look at him.”

Our father was buried in the muddy earth till his neck. He was cheerful.

“Look what happened to me. Being alive, I have to be buried..Ha..Ha..”

There was joy in his face. We certainly could see the change in him.

Later that day, we got bored sitting there. We decided to take off to the town for a movie.

We went to one of the restaurant and had a nice dinner and came back and slept.

“It’s already late. Get up” Jitin pulled my shoulder. I woke up with a jolt. That was really an awful good sleep I had for years.

Our father was in oil bath that day. Mariam applied some kind of oils to his whole body and asked him to sit in sun shade till evening.

“Boys. You wouldn’t believe how refreshing the mud bath is.”

He kept on talking about Mariam and her great treatment. He would not stop, even if we divert the topic to something else. Like a boomerang, always he would come back.

The sun was almost setting when we left for the outhouse.

My mind started thinking about home. ‘I would be back in two days’ I told them when I started. ‘Has Aamani gone to school? How is the work in the office?’ lots of questions.

‘I will go to the town and make a call to home’ I told Jitin.

“Yeah. Even I wanted to.”

On talking to our homes, I believe, our minds were not that stable. Somehow for the last three days, we could keep away all our tensions and affections of family life.

We argued and discussed our family issues that whole night.

‘Life never appeared to be so good. I got a soul to share with.’ I liked Jitin for the first time in my life.

‘How much I misunderstood him?’ I pondered.

We went very late the next day. We were little tired of lack of sleep before night. And we were also worried about our families.

‘Let’s talk to Mariam, whether we can continue treatment later.’ Jitin got agitated.

When we went that day, Mariam kept our father on fasting. He was little dull, but he could walk slowly.

‘How many days like this?’ I asked him.

‘No idea. You have to ask Mariam. She is the only one who knows the answer.’ He laughed.

We did not find Mariam at home till later evening. Along with her came a big group and by the time she finished with all of them, it was night.

Noticing my father still awake, she urged him to go inside and sleep.

‘Isn’t it too late? I told you to sleep by seven o’clock.’ She almost shouted.

Like a kid, my father bent his head and walked into the house.

Then she stared at us, as if she is going to burn us with her eyes.

“We are wondering how many more days it may take…” I started murmuring.

“Uh…What’s that?” She demanded.

“You see. We really do not have long leave there. We came leaving our families and work behind. We need to go back as soon as possible.” I explained with little guts.

“I see..” she appeared to be in deep thinking.

“My wife is seven-months pregnant now. She might need any assistance any time.’ Jitin added.

“Hmm…How many days since you left your families?’ she asked.

“Five days” I slowly replied.

“If you are missing your beloved ones just for five days, how it would be for your father to live alone here without anybody around?”

Mariam’s question hit us hard. We stood there dumb thinking what to tell.

“See boys. Your father is very old. He doesn’t need any treatment. He is sick, because there is no warmth of love here. He is missing you guys and his grandchildren very much.”

We understood our fault. Even though he is having two sons, he had to live alone. There was repentance in our hearts. We nodded our heads slowly, in acknowledging her comments.

“Yes. You are good. Take him with you. He will be alright.” Mariam turned back and vanished behind the house.

The very next day, we made arrangements in the village for somebody to look after the house and we took him with us.

“He will be going with me” Jitin asked.

“No. He will be going with me. After six months I will bring him to your home.”

This time, our fight was genuine. We really wanted him to go with us.

Mariam’s magic worked.